Home births 'a risk to babies'

Women who give birth at home may be putting their babies' lives in danger, the Government's health watchdog is set to warn.

For the first time, doctors and midwives will be ordered to tell women that giving birth in their own homes could be riskier than in hospital.

The advice, from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, is the first official acknowledgement that domestic deliveries could be unsafe.

The draft document appears to be odds with a Department of Health drive to encourage home births and led last night to accusations of scaremongering.

However, it was welcomed by obstetricians. Peter Bowen-Simpkins, a leader in the field, said: 'Every woman needs to know that giving birth at home is not without hazard.'

The draft guidance on care during labour - issued following a request from the Department of Health - says that women should be free to choose where they give birth.

However, their choice should based on the knowledge of the risks associated with the different settings, it says.

These include an increased risk of perinatal mortality - death of the baby during or shortly after birth - if the child is born at a setting outside a traditional labour ward, or 'consultant-led unit'.

Such settings include the woman's own home and stand-alone birthing centres, which are run by midwives.

The guidance states: 'There may be a lower risk of perinatal mortality when care is delivered in a consultant-led unit.'

The document, which will be finalised early next year, says that women who give birth at home or in a birthing unit are more likely to have a natural delivery, without the use of forceps and

pain-killing epidural injections. But while they may be happier out of a hospital setting, they are further away from the specialised care and equipment that would be on hand in a traditional labour ward.

The latest figures available show that in 2004 more than 15,000 babies were born at home in the UK, up seven per cent on the previous year.

The National Childbirth Trust, the pregnancy charity, said NICE does not have any firm evidence that home births are riskier.

Chief executive Belinda Phipps said: 'If it was really dangerous, the data would be there.

'There is no anecdotal or other screaming evidence that says this is dangerous. There just isn't concrete evidence that it is safe.

'This is just the medical profession being ultra-cautious and it will lead to women being worried unnecessarily.'